


往新的旅程出发 Just follow your heart

by Aurora___Borealis



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24185149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurora___Borealis/pseuds/Aurora___Borealis
Summary: Where Kuroo goes, Kenma follows.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	往新的旅程出发 Just follow your heart

**Author's Note:**

> a birthday gift for a special someone <3

Where Kuroo goes, Kenma follows.

To a training camp. Where among kids impelled by passion and thrill of the race, his small frame and face, void of any emotion except polite indifference, make him stick out like a sore thumb.

To the volleyball team. Where he initially struggles to fit into the slot he was assigned to take up but then somehow ends up meticulously piecing together not only himself but his teammates as well, until they form a fail-safe mechanism.

To the diner on the outskirts of the city. Where they serve ‘the best grilled pike in the world’, according to the most reliable source (Kuroo himself), and where Kenma dumps his share into Kuroo's plate halfway through and orders apple pie.

Today, Kenma follows Kuroo to the park for a run after another strenuous day of grueling practice — tomorrow, who knows? To the uttermost part of the Earth, if you will.

Kenma tries his best to match up with Kuroo's pace and not spit out his insides in the process, wondering where the unquenchable magical sources of Kuroo's energy came from and when they will drain because Kuroo never runs short of steam, it seems.

Kenma, on the other hand, does.

That is why, after almost tripping over himself, he wordlessly plops on a bench spotted four laps earlier. His jelly legs stretch out in front of him. 

Kuroo senses it with the back of his head and immediately stops in his tracks. 

“Perfect timing, the sun is setting anyway,” he says and drops down beside Kenma, who is perfectly aware the sun is going nowhere near the horizon in another half an hour.

“Man,” Kuroo exhales while trying to upsweep his black fringe, sweat-matted to his forehead. “I'm beat.” Which is another blatant lie in the face of Kenma's extensive knowledge and over the years accumulated experience when it comes to Kuroo's limits.

There is only a handful of beads of sweat glistening in the short hair at the back of Kuroo's head — a stray one disappears between his shoulder blades, leaving a furrow behind. He doesn't seem short of breath either, if the slightly quickened but otherwise steady rise and fall of his chest is anything to go by. And usually, Kenma would not hesitate to point it out and tease Kuroo with a perfectly blank face for being accommodating, but the burn and smolder in his own lungs outweigh the desire to point fingers at the incriminating evidence of Kuroo's kindness.

Kenma’s stamina is well above average, and he is generally rather quick to recover, but a long day topped with an infinitesimal portion of sleep he got the night before and a (completely unnecessary) race around the park as the final flourish are timely taking their toll.

As his pulse tap-dances frantically in his ears, he scrunches his eyes and concentrates on his breathing.

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Heavily, his heart lands thuds against his chest as if trying to break it from inside out. In and out.

The sun reaches out to lick across his cheekbones, taunting, weaves threads into his eyebrows, tries to creep under the veil of his eyelashes. The light pleasantly warms up his face and sends spots dancing behind his closed eyelids. In and out.

Gradually, breathing comes easier. He relaxes into the newly-acquired unwieldiness of his leaden limbs. In and out.

Someone walks by, and Kenma measures his inhales and exhales with the sound of footsteps. In and out.

The footsteps become more and more distant with each passing breath, until they fade completely, taking away the sound and leaving him with almost silence. In and out.

It seems that his body has lost the ability to keep an upright position, so he leans to his right, towards the welcoming warmth. In and out. 

In—

_

Something clings to the edges of Kenma's consciousness, then brusquely cleaves through the shroud.

“I'm gonna miss this.”

A familiar voice pulls him back to the surface, and he stirs awake, finding himself slumped against Kuroo's side, an unobtrusive embrace of a jacket over his shoulders. Kenma doesn't remember putting it on, but it's only fair — he didn't register himself nodding off either.

It isn't entirely clear whether he got drowsy from the heat and fresh air and fell asleep or simply passed out from exhaustion. Nor does it matter.

There is a promise of tomorrow soreness ebbing at his limbs as he stretches them out, then produces a sequence of pops and cracks with his neck and spine and finishes off with a big cat-like yawn. He blinks the bleariness out of his eyes just in time to notice Kuroo trying to drive tingles out of his numb shoulder with his fingers. 

Judging by the way the grey lace of air has begun to soften sharp edges, enveiling them with the promise of twilight, Kuroo was forced to sit perfectly still for what looks like at least an hour. Kenma watches him chase the numbness down the slide of the forearm to his elbow and has half a mind to throw in a ‘sorry’ but figures that there is at least a fraction of Kuroo's fault in his fully discharged battery.

He’ll live. 

Kuroo’s smile spells triumph coated with something more wistful and just out-of-focus when he meets Kenma’s eye and says, “This, too.”

It reminds Kenma of what has woken him up in the first place. He hums a blurry ‘What?’ and gets a shoulder shrug in response, along with a vague gesture towards the sunset. Before following the motion, Kenma's gaze hangs off the tips of Kuroo’s fingers.

As the sun dips experimentally beneath the line, the horizon awaits with pent breath — then sinks teeth right into its flesh until the sun ripens, red and angry. Its desperate dying glow chases shadows around until they sneak under their bench, like thieves. When the shadows tangle up in their legs, stretch into spaces between them, stare up into Kuroo’s face — and Kuroo remains pensive, uncharacteristically so, Kenma knows exactly where this is going.

It nestles in his unfocused stare, in the corners of his eyes: the thing that orchestrates his exaggerated sighs and prolonged glances, makes Kuroo Tetsurou, lo and behold, somewhat sentimental — has him run his fingers along the vertebrae of random volumes on the bookshelf in Kenma's room or drives his smile, triggered off by another successful spike or serve, away from his face in a matter of seconds. The same thing that makes Kuroo stall in the lockers after each mundane practice and spend half an hour folding his uniform with deft fingers (until Kenma loses patience and has to smack him awake).

“Kuro. You're going to college. Not dying,” Kenma enunciates.

And as a given, this very thing also causes Kuroo’s flair for dramatism to increase severalfold and evolve into something even Kenma has a hard time putting up with.

“It feels like I am.”

“Well, then good riddance to your dramatic ass.”

The corners of Kuroo’s lips crawl up, which almost costs him breaking the character. “I’m deeply wounded you can’t play along and at least pretend you feel sad.”

Kenma shrugs noncommittally because he doesn’t — he doesn’t feel sad, even though it’s true that Kuroo has never been further than a block away.

The lack of sadness on his part doesn’t equal indifference: Kuroo's solid presence has become such a constant in every equation of Kenma’s everyday life that he simply forgets to imagine how it’s going to be without him — that it _can_ be without him at all. But Kenma isn’t one to have issues with the harshness of reality or succumb to illusions: they have a spoonful of practices at their hands and a shared lifestyle wedged into their bones, and that’s okay, some things were destined to be out of the picture sooner or later.

He doesn’t feel sad about it, not really: there will be other things — a part of another picture, an even bigger one, waiting anxiously to be created. 

As simple as that: “I claim the top bank and all lower shelves in the closet,” he says.

Then, when Kuroo turns to him with a question stamped across his face: “In your dorm. Or apartment. Or whatever. I'll move in next year,” Kenma elaborates matter-of-factly.

A moment or two to tune into the same wavelength and Kuroo erupts in laughter — that loud, obnoxious, wonderful laugh of his. It springs from the depths of his chest and flows out in short, strong bursts, powerful enough to force the edges of the straight line that forms Kenma's mouth ever so slightly upwards. 

“We don't even know which college it's gonna be,” Kuroo huffs, scratching the back of his neck. His tone is halved between amusement and endearment — small mercies. 

Kenma lowers his head and presses a temple against the side of Kuroo's shoulder. With an air of finality to his voice, he says: “Doesn't matter.”

‘Where you go, I follow,’ he doesn't say.

Then shakes his head just slightly, shaking off the thought and the feeling without a name that comes with it as a set — his bleached hair sweeps in a curtain over his face, shielding him from the relentless reach of the light. Kenma’s eyes fall shut again. 

It has become a matter of habit at this point: erecting an artificial barrier of sorts, pointedly driving away conversations, tiresome questions, people. It has proven to be a faultless technique against intervention in all cases.

Or rather, in all cases, except for—

Gentle fingers part the man-made curtain right in the middle and tuck a strand behind Kenma's ear. After all, a deterrent force powerful enough to hold back one Kuroo Tetsurou has yet to be invented.

The ability to be surprised by things Kuroo does or attempts to do is lost to Kenma and long past retrieve, or so he likes to think — but a cold fingertip circles his ear a fraction of a second longer than necessary — and a would-be annoyed sigh morphs into something not quite familiar, catches in his throat. 

Another second passes, and Kuroo’s hand is gone. Only an echo of a touch, barely traceable in slightly pink tips of Kenma's ears.

Meanwhile, Kuroo adjusts the jacket that sits slightly askew on Kenma’s shoulder and slowly but steadily slides off — two sizes too big to belong on his bony figure. 

“Deal.” Kuroo smiles, and Kenma doesn't need to see, he can feel it with his skin — these golden observant eyes, squinting at him, following the traces of sunset across his features.

It's the height of summer, but a slight shiver ripples through Kuroo's body as the evening chill dips spiky fingers under the hem of his damp hoodie. Kenma's head shakes rhythmically against his shoulder as Kuroo fights to choke the shiver down. Kenma makes a barely-there movement, offering the jacket back — nothing more than a courtesy bidding, in all fairness — and second-guesses Kuroo's hands flying to the zipper. 

“No.” Kuroo makes sure Kenma properly sticks his arms through the sleeves. “Keep it.” When the zipper follows up to the top of his chest, Kenma receives a gentle tap of knuckles against his chin, ordering him to lift his head. “My body tolerates cold better than yours anyway,” Kuroo comments, adjusting the too-high collar that reaches up to Kenma’s nose, and Kenma almost cringes from the impact of magnitude ten deja vu: he has heard the exact same phrase a handful of times before. Because this is what Kuroo truly is — a broken record.

If Akaashi deliberately compiled a list of Bokuto's pet peeves, Kenma's list-of-whatever compiled itself over the years of coexistence.

**Exhibit one.** One of the matters Kuroo will remain adamant about: offering— scratch that, _forcing_ his jacket on Kenma at a slight temperature change.

Kenma peeks down at his noodle legs, sticking comically out of the bottom of Kuroo's jacket, and knows better than to object. After all, one of the commandments says, ‘Agreeing with Tetsurou saves energy.’ And going up against the cannonball of Kuroo's care is self-sabotage: a skeptic raise of Kenma's eyebrow can provoke an expatiation the world will never hear the end of, even if it has to be delivered through a violent arpeggio of Kuroo's chattering teeth.

And this is another truth about Kuroo Tetsurou: he is twice as stubborn as he is considerate.

**Exhibit two.** Kenma’s eyes remain closed but he knows it's there and stares him right in the face. 

“I wish there was a way to wipe this stupid smirk off your face for good,” he sighs.

There is no need to possess a gift of foresight or any divine powers to be able to tell that it only fuels the flames dancing around Kuroo's irises. He tries to keep his voice even when he says, “Dunno what you mean. I'm dead serious,” but a wide grin laces through every syllable. “And you can’t even see it, that doesn’t count.”

Kenma breathes out an exasperated “I don’t _need_ to—” but opens his eyes anyway. They meet Kuroo’s squinting ones and remain locked onto them, even when Kuroo’s shameless smirk, which he isn’t even trying to conceal, starts shriveling up on its ends, wilting, until it morphs into a tamed semblance of a smile. It almost looks out of place, as if left there on accident — too timid and mismatched; a hasty premonition of a new expression that gradually takes over his features.

The remnants of sunlight reach out softly and catch at the side of Kuroo's face with coral afterglow. It’s barely enough to illuminate his gaze — one that lingers beautifully on the delicate precipices of desperation and uncertainty. 

A deep breath arches Kuroo’s chest. 

“I'm sure you know—” is all that spills past his lips when a merciless hand, slender but firm, slots over his mouth before he has a chance to dodge it. 

“You were going to say something corny.” The press of Kenma’s palm is unyielding. “I felt it in my bones.” Which can roughly be translated into _“I know.”_

After all, Kuroo is not the only one who is used to picking up tiniest of signs and who learned his way around, moving by touch, until every unfamiliar track became a trodden path. To each other, they both are dog-eared books with stories known by heart. 

Not in the habit of admitting defeat so easily, Kuroo watches Kenma watch him, then gives a quick but generous lick across his palm. 

“Ew,” Kenma sharply withdraws his hand. “Germs.” His face scrunches up and assumes his trademark expression — that of disgust. “You're gross,” he mutters, wiping off his palm on Kuroo's black panted thigh because it’s what he deserves.

“For your information, some people would commit a crime to be in your shoes and be graced with Kuroo Tetsurou's DNA.”

Kenma zealously rubs his palm on fabric until friction makes his skin warm and prickly. Afterward, his hand doesn’t necessarily go away at once. “Gross and silly,” he informs.

Then, **exhibit three.** A lopsided grin, a fox-like squint: “You love me.”

Kenma levels Kuroo with a once-over and shakes his head in false disbelief. “Gross, silly, _and_ full of yourself.”

Long, calloused fingers flex on Kuroo's thigh, pale skin juxtaposed against the black fabric of his pants. On top of Kenma's hand lands a considerably bigger one, covering his entirely.

“If you say so.”

They sit in comfortable silence until the twilight turns a few shades deeper. With it, the wind rises, gaining power, slithering through the tree crowns in a thick, conspiratorial whisper.

Without warning, Kuroo stands up, ripping the bubble of warmth off Kenma's side. He stretches out his hand. “Come on. It's getting late.”

Wordlessly, Kenma takes it and lets himself be pulled up to his feet.

Where Kuroo goes, Kenma follows, fingers tucked securely between Kuroo's in the front pocket of his hoodie.

**Author's Note:**

> the title is taken from Lin Yanjun's song "Competitor" (simply because it's amazing, I highly recommend watching the MV) and translates into "Embarking on a new journey, just follow your heart"
> 
> I didn't expect myself writing for another fandom but then Kuroken just. happened


End file.
